Total beginner trying to decide if Wappler is out of my league

Wappler General
#1

I’m trying to decide whether or not Wapper would be a good tool for me to learn, and was hoping this community could help me out. I have zero coding experience, but figured that if I’m going to spend time learning a tool, I might as well go for a more comprehensive one so I don’t have to unlearn any bad practices from simpler tools (tools that also lock you in). I’m a nontechnical person who leans heavily towards design.

Some questions I have are:

  1. Do you need to have some knowledge of programming/databases/servers from the outset in order to make anything even remotely complex with Wappler? How far can you go, exactly, using it as a nocode tool rather than a lowcode tool?
  2. I’ve seen that some tools like Flutterflow benefit from plugins that attempt to bridge the gap between UI design and the finished product (e.g. XD to Flutter plugin). Is there anything like this for Wappler, that helps designers take their already finished designs in a tool like Figma or Adobe XD and export some of it to Wappler?
  3. How customizable is Wappler on the front end? How much control do you have over the UI of your app?

The project I have in mind to start with involves the following features - I have no idea if this would be seriously out of reach for a person with my background and/or within the context of a tool like Wappler:

  1. The ability for users to create posts/entries that expire after a certain length of time;
  2. The ability for users to apply multiple filters simultaneously when viewing a list of posts/entries from other users;
  3. Integration with Google Maps or OpenStreetMap so users can drop location pins visible to other users;
  4. The app being able to detect a users approximate location, so they can be shown other users within a certain mile radius of them;
  5. Basic in-app messaging that expires after a certain length of time;
  6. In-app calendars

Given the kinds of apps I want to make, my lack of coding experience, and the limitations of Wappler, does it sound like this would be a worthwhile tool for me to learn? I really appreciate any advice you guys have to share.

Thanks!

#2

Answers to questions:

  1. You need to have some knowledge of how things work. Most of the code (nearly all) will be created by Wappler.
  2. Not available as yet. See Adobe XD extension for Wappler. Maybe a surprise introduction in Wappler v5 which is due in a couple of weeks.
  3. The front end uses Bootstrap which is extremely customizable. See https://getbootstrap.com/.

As far as the features are concerned, all that you have mentioned as your end goal is possible with Wappler.

Have a look at this playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLUjqTJN3byC9fUoXFnoNGlYBCBZOJUPca

#3

Hi.
I am assuming you are trying to build a web app. So my answers are based on that. For mobile app, its a different scenario.

As a nocode tool, you can do a lot, but nothing too complex. With nested tables and nested forms in the recent versions, you can do a little more. In our experience in using Wappler for the past 3 years, if you are planning to build a complex app, Wappler’s nocode capabilities will exhaust soon.
So, having not just some, but a little more of programming/db/server knowledge would be required.
You can get to a good stage in your app with nocode, but once you need more complex stuff, all the above knowledge would be needed.

Nope. If you can extract HTML/CSS from such designing tools, you can paste that in code directly.

There are many-many options. And the Bootstrap Theme Builder gives you more control. But there has never been a case where we haven’t had to use custom CSS and JS to get things done.
Its nowhere near some other nocode tools, but those tools are nowhere nead the flexibility Wappler provides.

As for your app points, everything can be done in Wappler - that too mostly visually (nocode).
Wappler has built-in support for Google Maps. For location, browser based location capture is not very reliable, so better to build a mobile app if its your app’s core function.

Given that you don’t have any programming experience, I would suggest to invest some time in learning that stuff, outside and unrelated to Wappler. So your knowledge is not limited to building things on one tool.
Once you have an idea of how a web app is built and works, working with Wappler will be a bit more easier.

P.S. Learn Git as well. Its not compulsory, but it will help immeasurably.